ABSTRACT
Objective: To explore the expression of PTK7 in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and its clinical significance. Methods: The clinical and follow-up data of 85 patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma who underwent radical surgery at Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital from May 2011 to January 2016 were analyzed. The expression of PTK7 in 85 pancreatic cancer tissues and the corresponding para-cancer tissues was detected by immunohistochemistry, and the relationship between PTK7 expression level and the clinical pathological features and prognosis was analyzed. Results: Positive expression of PTK7 was observed mainly in the cytoplasm, presenting as brownish yellow granules. It was noted that expression of PTK7 in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma tissues and para-carcinoma tissues was 70.6% (60/85) and 52.9% (45/85), respectively, and the positive rate in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma tissues was significantly higher than that in para-carcinoma tissues; the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). The abnormal expression of PTK7 was correlated with the tumor stage, lymph node metastasis, and the vascular tumor embolus (P<0.05). The survival analysis suggested that the survival time or recurrence-free time of patients with PTK7 high expression in pancreatic duct adenocarcinoma was significantly shorter than in those with low expression (P<0.05, respectively). ShRNA interference of PTK7 was successfully established in the cell stabilizing system, verified by MTT and clone formation. Results indicated that cell survival was significantly lower in the shRNA experimental group compared to the control group (P<0.05), the number of colonies formed was significantly smaller in the shRNA experimental group compared to the control group (P<0.05), and the expression of proliferation-related proteins Ki-67 and PCNA was significantly lower in the shRNA experimental group compared to the control group (P<0.05, respectively). Conclusions: The up-regulation of PTK7 expression in pancreatic ductal ad-enocarcinoma tissues was associated with the tumor stage, lymph node metastasis, and the vascular tumor thrombus, suggesting poor prognosis. It was also found that in pancreatic cancer cell lines, PTK7 could promote the proliferation of pancreatic cancer cells by regulating the levels of proliferative factors Ki-67 and PCNA.
ABSTRACT
Background and purpose: The protein tyrosine kinase-7 (PTK7) gene may be related to the occurrence and progression of many tumors. This study was aimed to explore the expression of PTK7 in ovarian serous tumors and its relationship with clinical stage, histological grade, metastasis and prognosis indicators linkages, and analyze the diagnostic and prognostic value of PTK7 in ovarian serous tumors. Methods:Expressions of PTK7 in 3 ovarian cell lines (HO8910, SKOV3, A2780), 14 cases of normal fallopian tube epithelium, 6 cases of benign serous ovarian tumors, 51 cases of borderline serous ovarian tumors and in 97 cases of ovarian serous carcinoma were detected by immunohistochemical EliVision two-step method. Statistical analysis of the relationship between the expression of PTK7 and the pathological indicators was performed byχ2 test, Fisher exact test and Kaplan-Meier method. Results:PTK7 was negatively expressed in HO8910 and A2780, but weakly positively expressed in SKOV3. The positive rates of PTK7 in normal fallopian tube epithelium, benign serous ovarian tumors, borderline serous ovarian tumors and serous ovarian cancer were 92.86%(13/14), 83.33%(5/6), 45.10%(23/51), and 28.87%(28/97), respectively. The expression of PTK7 had no difference between normal fallopian tube epithelium and benign serous tumors, benign serous tumors and serous borderline tumors (P=0.521, P=0.102). The PTK7 expression showed signiifcant differences in serous ovarian carcinoma compared with those in normal epithelium, benign serous tumors and borderline serous tumors (P=0.000, P=0.012, P=0.048). Expression of PTK7 in borderline serous ovarian tumors was signiifcantly with clinical stage, metastasis (lymph node and/or peritoneum metastasis) (P=0.038, P=0.038), rather than its location, age (P=0.088, P=0.896). Expression of PTK7 in ovarian serous carcinoma had a signiifcant relation with its clinical stage, WHO grade, MDACC grade (P=0.011, P=0.004, P=0.000), rather than its location, metastasis, tumor diameter and age (P=0.326, P=0.524, P=0.588, P=0.584). The survival rate of PTK7 positive group in ovarian serous carcinoma was signiifcantly higher than that in the negative control group (P=0.017). Conclusion:The expressions of PTK7 in normal ovarian epithelium, benign serous ovarian tumors, borderline serous ovarian tumors and epithelial serous carcinoma show a gradual downward trend. The expression of PTK7 in ovarian serous tumors has a positive correlation with late clinical stage, high histological grade and poor prognosis. PTK7 can be a new indicator of clinical diagnosis and prognosis in ovarian serous tumors.